Hello! I am creating a game within RPGMaker with FaeV and I have a question!

First to explain, this game plans to have art and cut scenes within it, more then just pixel art and we would like as many people as we can get to play this game so my question is how important is it to you to allow you to pick your character's gender within a video game or if you're completely indifferent to it.

Now I know, "Why not just make it have all the genders to begin with?" Well because that means A LOT more coding and A LOT more art and if most of the community would just be indifferent to it then it would save a lot of time! But if most the community would better enjoy getting to pick then it will be worth all the extra assets we will have to put into it. But then also if a vast majority picks Female then we will make the character female, or if majority picks male, yadda yadda. So this is to help us gather up data!

I would like it to make the protagonist's gender to be undefined, but include ways to customize an outfit so that you can make your character act as a certain gender - and even change your mind at a later point.

LightningLord2 wrote:I would like it to make the protagonist's gender to be undefined, but include ways to customize an outfit so that you can make your character act as a certain gender - and even change your mind at a later point.

Our game is in the very very early stages in it's development so not too much of what features or such have been thought out but I do appreciate this feedback and have it written down to see if it could be a possibility! Thanks for the input ♥

There are a lot of hooks that need to be thrown into the text to simply use proper pronouns. Then if anything lewd is done it just derails entire scenes into being different text wise or graphics wise.

This is just a distraction from the main goal of making a vore game.

Some games make it a set in stone choice and others make it irrelevant to what is going on. There are plenty of games that it just doesn't matter and the subject is danced around skillfully.

You have to ask yourself during the brainstorming process "What is this game's driving forces?"

If player choice is key, crafting who the character is and what choices they make like a skyrim or SIMs type deal then gender is absolutely required.

If you're trying to tell a story though, just push a narrative like a visual novel then the choice doesn't much matter and trying to push it in is a distraction from the goal.

Trans/non binary isn't even somewhere I've considered. Not for not having thought of it but knowing that It isn't a subject I know well enough to even consider portraying it. It would feel like me as a suburbanite american black male writing a biography about the struggles of a young Polynesian female in poverty. I have no sense of it so I should just stay away or find a consultant who is or was a young Polynesian female in poverty. There is a certain respect factor there that I personally would tread lightly around.

With every little project I make I'm finding that choices like these multiply the work needed and my one man show isn't capable of outputting triple A developer efforts. Just my 2 cents though. There are exceptions and I'd love to be wrong.

As you mentioned yourself, it's a ton of extra work, but it can give people some immersion. Just remember the more code you add in, the more bugs become possible and create issues. It's why extraneous code is a big deal. If you want to do all the extra work and hammer out bugs, people will probably appreciate it, but people will appreciate a game with scenes regardless, so make what you can create and not end up feeling like it's a chore instead of a hobby. If you burn out having to rewrite the same scene 5 times on every encounter to incorporate every gender option and add art for it all, you might burn out and resent what used to be fun to make.

If you think you can handle it though, I'm sure everyone will love a game with options, so do whatever you like.

I think we all agree that it would be nice to have the option, but games are already so hard to make. Most vore games are never completed. We have our preferences, but more than anything, I think we are all rooting for you to finish!

I think the best option would be to have the protagonist be a well-defined character with their own personal characteristics, which would include sex/gender. It gives everything more focus, and more of a sense of identity.

The nuance in this discussion is why I wish the poll was a bit more flexible. I'd prefer having an option, but playing as a female is a close second. Sadly my vote can't reflect that, but well--I suppose that's what posts are for.

Artemis wrote:The nuance in this discussion is why I wish the poll was a bit more flexible. I'd prefer having an option, but playing as a female is a close second. Sadly my vote can't reflect that, but well--I suppose that's what posts are for.

I second this. I think being able to select more than one option in a poll also would help with this, because I definitely had two poll votes (well three), but went with choose character for mine, but trans/non-binary, female, and player choice are the three, though I can play a game without a choice if I can get into it.

So, here's my take on this.

Develop one gender first, then use that as a baseline for all others.

It might not be the most efficient, nor time saving, but it might do for the entirety of development.

As for art, that's for someone else to cover because I'm the writer, who manages to do okay-ish in pixel art resources (but Amysaurus is a lot better than I).

LightningLord2 wrote:I would like it to make the protagonist's gender to be undefined, but include ways to customize an outfit so that you can make your character act as a certain gender - and even change your mind at a later point.

In games with small sprites like RPGMaker, this is a really great idea when possible, having it essentially be costume-based.

Of course, anything with sex scenes makes that harder from the writing/scripting side, but personally I don't find sex scenes to be necessary at all for vore fetish work to still be enjoyable.

As for my own opinion on the poll, obviously full choice between all options is the best when it's feasible, but when it's not, I prefer a female lead. Even in games with primarily-male leads where dicks are even written into their scenes, I'd rather at least have the option to use a female or androgynous/undefined character sprite anyway (and tend to go into RPGMaker and edit sprites/portraits myself if not given the choice in-game).

Don't make gender choice even a thing unless the point of your game is really role-playing. If you're trying to tell a story with vore, you already have a gender in mind - use that. If if would make a major difference in any scenes you plan to do to have a different gender participating in the event consider how much time you'll spend rewriting everything to fit both genders. It's not impossible, but it's going to limit how much time you can focus on developing different scenes because you'll spend extra time on each one.

Consider a simple story event for example that ends in a bad end: Main character and Pred character are temporary allies traveling. They find an abandoned building of a shelter and bed down for the night. Let's assume, for simplicity's sake, that Pred is female. If Pred is about to eat Main, there are a few ways that this scene plays out - sexual seduction leading to getting eaten is a common tactic authors like the write here (cause it's hot), but Pred seducing Main is going to play out completely differently if Main is a girl or a boy (or anything in between). The drives that make Main decide it's worth it to get into a situation that could end with getting eaten are generally completely different depending on if they're girl or a boy (hard to cocktease someone who doesn't have a cock), so that's two scenes that need to play out for Main to get eaten.

The simple act of writing different reactions and speech patterns for the Main character's sexes is going to give Main(F) and Main(M) different personalities. They may be similar, but you generally can't just swap puss for penis and wet for hard expecting players to think it's good writing (Plus impregnation stuff or tits or ejaculation and all other things not directly shared between the two). So try as you may, you're going to have to write two main characters in order to supply a Female and Male choice for the player if you're going to have any consistency. It's far better to write the game you want to make and write the character you think is best for the story's sake. Players can only find things that they would change about your game if you actually make it, afterall.

Hmm... I would like to point out that while letting the player assume the protagonist's gender in games can kinda work in normal games, when it comes to... adult games you're likely to encounter a lot more people to whom the experience will be impacted by no one in-game acknowledging their gender or otherwise needing to use their imagination to get that part of the experience. There's a strong correlation between the relevance of sexual orientation to a game and the importance of the protagonist's gender, y'see.

It might work out, but I wouldn't make the mistake of believing it'll be a crowd pleaser--not anymore than picking a single gender and writing up a good game around that anyway. That being said, I suppose if you did decide to go that route allowing people to play dressup would certainly be a decent compromise.